Sigil Archives - Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources

After months of teases, Marvel has officially announced a new imprint, CrossGen, as well as the first two titles and their creative teams.

Ruse #1 by Mark Waid and Mirco Pierfederici, with a cover by Butch Guice and Mike Perkins, debuts in March. Waid and Guice worked on Ruse back when it was published by the original CrossGen circa 2001. Joining Ruse is Sigil, written by Mike Carey and drawn by Leonard Kirk. Both are four-issue miniseries.

“SIGIL is epic fantasy on a colossal scale, ultimately spanning the whole of human history,” Carey told Marvel.com. “It tells the story of a young girl who has inherited a unique talent and destiny from her dead mother and has also been enlisted without her knowledge or understanding in a war that spans all of space and time. The amazing Leonard Kirk is our [artist], so when I throw around all these adjectives about huge scope and epic scale, you know I’m not kidding.”

“Simon [may be] the world’s greatest detective, but he’s overlooking a mystery that’s right under his nose: the secret that Emma is keeping would floor him,” Waid told the site. “Together, they solve impossible crimes in a series that’s a little Fantastic Four, a little Sherlock Holmes, and a lot of mystery. This may be the most fun I’ve ever had writing.”

Founded in 1998 by Florida entrepreneur Mark Alessi, CrossGen featured a line of titles in a variety of genres with a shared universe, or “Sigilverse,” with characters broadly linked by the Sigils they received. The first wave of comics launched in 2000 with Sigil, the fantasies Meridian, Mystic and Scion, and the “untold tales” anthology CrossGen Chronicles. Later additions included the Victorian detective series Ruse, the contemporary horror Route 666, the pirate adventure El Cazador, the fantasy Sojourn and the wuxia comedy Way of the Rat. CrossGen filed for bankruptcy in 2004. Later that same year, Disney bought the company’s assets for $1 million. Marvel began teasing the return of CrossGen last summer at Comic-Con International in San Diego.